Flood Zone Determination

Stay in Compliance with Special Flood Hazard Area Notifications

Flood zone determination can and does change over time. Changes occur for many reasons, including new development, levee reclassification and environmental changes.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is continually updating its flood hazard maps across the country to account for these changes. These maps, known as Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps, show flood risk at a property-by-property level.

Mortgage professionals are required to promptly notify property owners when FEMA issues a change in flood zone determination, either into or out of a Special Flood Hazard Area. Federal regulators have recently become more stringent in enforcing this notification rule, with some inspectors suggesting that lenders inform borrowers of these flood zone determination changes within 10 days.

Credit Plus can provide you with timely flood zone determination and other reports based on the most comprehensive and up-to-date FEMA data. This includes:

Basic and life-of-loan service

Loan portfolio review for compliance

Real-time flood mapping

High auto-determination rate

HMDA services

Nationwide coverage

Premier selection of flood providers

Census tract and HMDA data included with life-of-loan flood certificates.

Lenders can be fined $350 for every occurrence in which a borrower has not received notification of a change in flood zone determination. Credit Plus delivers peace of mind by meeting or exceeding all regulatory timelines for sending compliance notices.